Merry Christmas

We were at Grandview Adventist Academy for their Christmas program. It was hard for me to get the gumption to get up and get close enough to take photos of the singing and acting.

It was much easier to take a few photos of the artwork posted on the back of the gymnasium wall.

The children did a great job of catching the essence of Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all!

Winter Snowfall

It snowed a few inches last week, then yesterday it warmed up to 6 degrees Celsius with lot of rain. So all the snow melted.

This morning there was a light snowfall. Just enough to rest lightly on the branches in the garden. I makes the world seem like a fairyland.

This first picture shows (l-r): a dwarf Alberta Spruce, a Blue Fescue grass, and a dwarf Hemlock.

The second photo shows the painted tree (see the post of The August Garden)

As we drove to work, it seemed that the snow on the bigger trees along the road had started to come off. So it seemed that the snowiness was best at home.

Also saw a flock of crows in the field just over the hill. There were probably 40 crows that dispersed as we drove by. What was that all about? Don't think I've ever seen that many crows in one spot all at once.

Visit The King of Green for top quality Lawn Care. www.hamilton.turfking.ca
We care for your lawns with Friendly Service and Expert advice.
Turf King, the Lawn Experts.

I REFUSE to be Stubborn

No, Yes, No, Yes, I absolutely refuse to be Stubborn

I am adamantly opposed to Stubborness.

Signed,

The Mule

btw What is the opposite of stubborn?

See our website www.hamilton.turfking.ca for great lawn care providers. Pesticide-Free programs available.

Wayback Machine

While cleaning out some books from a bookshelf, this fell out of the books. Appears to be a pay slip from 1974 at the greenhouse at Andrews University. Rosemary worked there when she went back to finish off her B.Sc. in Nursing. The very generous sum of $1.60 per hour.

On a slightly different subject- To find what old webpages may have looked like in the past, you can use the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to go "wayback." Actually, it only goes back to 1996.

Black & White Camouflage

Uncle Aubrey and his new bride Joy (see August's blog) moved into a new 2 bedroom apartment last week. One of the things that had to go was a rickety old metal table that was a bit beat up. It had black legs with white shelves.

I tightened up the bolts so it was sturdy and then put several coats of black spray paint on it. (I should have taken a before photo)

Then a touch of a silver marble spray paint to give it the marbling effect.

When I first printed the photos, I thought I had forgotten to set the printer to print in colour. Only when I looked closer, did I see the one green plant, and the green plants showing at the top edge. In our black and white kitchen, the table will be nicely camouflaged.

For the black & white about caring for your lawn, see our Turf King Website. The King of Green knows how to care for your lawn.

Portulacaria Bonsai

My twenty year old bonsai is looking a little sad. I had it outside for the summer where it got full sunlight. It has been indoors for about 8 weeks now. Most of the old leaves fell off. The bonsai looks a little naked, now that those "summertime" leaves have come off.
However, as they say "Don't get your panties in a knot!" Because the portulacaria is sprouting a whole new set of "wintertime-indoor" leaves. It is shedding its nude look for a greener, lusher covering.

See our Turf King Website for the King of Green Lawn Care

STS-126 Endeavour Shuttle Launch 11/14/2008

We drove down from Daytona Beach to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. We figured we were about 10-12 miles from the shuttle launch area and it was getting pretty close to 7:55 pm which was the launch time. We pulled off the road onto a side road. We only waited a few minutes before we saw a glow on the horizon. The glow got bigger and brighter.

A few minutes later, the shuttle could be seen. A little while later, you could hear the thunder of the shuttle.

When we got back to the resort, we found that other people had already posted video on YouTube. It appears that while they were a little closer (just across the water), their video was soon hidden by the clouds.
From where we were, no clouds were visible. This may be because we were north of the shuttle launch site and I believe their video was taken from the south. Or because we were further away than they were.

Baked Alaska

One of the things we took some time to do was to make a Baked Alaska. We used a brownie base, baked in a tinfoil muffin pan. Then froze them, added ice cream, made the meringue. Froze it some more. Then put it into the oven to brown the meringue.
Yummy!

Is that Alligator Alive?

We drove the Black Point Wildlife Drive on
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge near
Titusville, Florida. We saw some great birds as well as some small and one very large alligator. Greg & Justin were sure the big alligator was dead, until it moved, and then they could not get into the car fast enough!

Lots of Ibis, gulls, herons. a couple of kingfishers, a roseate spoonbill, osprey, and a bald eagles nest, and more.

Volusia County Fair

Went with Greg, Justin & Shelli to the Volusia County Fair. Enjoyed a "blooming onion."

We figured at a State or County Fair almost anything deep fried would become an instant hit at the food stands. The ultimate would be a deep fried fat. Take some fat, margarine, lard or something like that, dip it in a batter and deep fry it. What could be more greasy than that?

In the Blue Ribbon building, we say a table setting exhibit. One of the first prizes was for a contrasting table. One side for someone like Greg. Plastic cutlery, camp dish, outdoor warmer vs. lace, china and silverware.

And we saw a whole lot of cute and harey animals.

I'm all FOUR it

There I was driving out of the office in the van, I looked down and saw the odometer. Wow, where's my camera.

Mini Butternut

Here are some of the fruit we bought at the roadside fruit stand just before entering Fig Tree Road. We had seen at another stand some butternuts squash. But they were very small-tiny in fact.
I felt like stopping and saying, "How come your squash is so small? My friend from Panama says everything grows so much bigger there, I thought your squash would be huge here, too."
So when we were in a grocery store, we saw some of the small squash, thought we need some vegetables to eat anyway.
Cooked it today, taste was okay, but the squash was so small it didn't have any seeds inside. I guess size isn't everything.


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Antigua Pigeon Beach

Spent one day at the beach here at the resort. We weren't on the the beach for more than 5 minutes when some one came by to sell a catamaran trip. We told Myron we didn't think we were interested. A few more hawkers came by at regular intervals to sell jewelry, baskets, more trips, seadoo rentals. Unfortunately for them, lucky for us, we didn't take any money to the beach.

Monday, we drove down towards English Harbour. We stop at Darkwoods beach and another one were there were horses wandering around.

We passed through Fig Tree Drive. This area is quite rain "foresty". Reminded us of the road to Hana in Maui (but much shorter). Stopped at a fruit stand to buy some mangoes, papaya, pineapple, and custard apples (locally known as honey apple, or as Moya or cherimoya).

At English Harbour we came to the site of the National Historic site of Nelson's Dockyard. We weren't quite ready to do the history stuff yet. We glanced at a tourist guide. Pigeon's Point has a great beach it said. And the map showed it to be right near English Harbour. Went down a side road and found a very picturesque beach. Quiet water, nice sandy area with fig trees for shade. We could sit close to the water and yet still keep an eye on the car. Only one hawker came by but since we were hungry, we were happy to pay for a couple of Roti's.

We saw a starfish near the shore. When it was out of the waves it curled up its arms as if trying to go back to the sea.

Later we did go to spend couple of hours at the Dockyards.

Antigua Jolly Beach

Here we are arrived at our resort on Jolly Harbour. Nice suite, even had fresh flower blossoms in the room and robes laid out on the bed.
We arrived at the airport and picked up our rental car. Good thing I managed to drive in London, England on the "wrong" side of the road. Here at least the car was automatic. The only thing I'm having to get used to is the turn signal is on the right hand side of the steering wheel. The car we rented in London, the turn signal was still on the left side. I keep turning on the windshield wipers when making a turn.

Squash Load II

Last November we posted about our bountiful squash crop. This year we outdid ourselves. Since we were going to be away, we thought we should pick the squash just in case we got a frosty night.
I don't know if it was the rainy summer or if it was the virgin soil of the new garden area, or maybe we just planted more seeds this year.

But look at the crop- I think we harvest 4 times as much this year.

The August Garden

The garden has been doing fine this year. Here's a photo of my artsy tree. Seven or eight years ago, I brought home a Blue Star Juniper standard from a customer who wasn't able to keep it looking good. It was half dead. So I planted it- nothing to lose. Even with my care and neglect, it did not survive. So I trimmed it and stripped the bark off. The dead mini-tree sits near the entrance to our back yard.
Over the years I have spray painted it silver, gold, copper. A few people noticed but most just overlooked it. This year I had spray painted the horseshoes red and blue. With the can of red in my hand, I looked at the tree and thought red and blue might be more artistic? I even painted a mock orange branch red and stuck it into the fence. (can be seen in the background.)

Last year a friend gave us some four o'clock seeds (thanks Diane). I have never grown Four o'clocks before. I planted a few here and there once the soil had warmed. They grew easily. They flowered profusely in red, pink, white and yellow. They grow to about 24-30 inches high. Now they are starting to produce seeds. Lots of seeds. Collected a bunch, but most are falling on the ground. We'll see if they will come up next year on their own. And, will they become a weed in the garden by coming up too much.

Another flower I tried this year was Strawflower. I was surprised at how tall they grew. The flowers, as they matured, dried to the texture of straw. I cut some and hung them upside dow to dry. The stems, however are weak. It's probably best to use wire instead of the natural stems. The natural stems flop over and the bouquet looks like it is falling down.

Hibiscus- there are a number of lovely plants in this family. The Southern Belle types have large single flowers. Like all hibiscus, they only last a day, but a mature plant can have many blossoms that give the illusion that they are all flowering at once.

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London Trip

We went to London England this summer for the wedding of Rosemary's uncle. We spent a day in London. While at the gift shop at Westminster Abbey, I say a photo of the London bus in red with a black and white background. Hey, I think my camera can do that. After a couple of trials and errors, here are a few of my attempts at the "color accent" setting.

In London there were several things in addition to the buses that were red. The telephone booths and the Royal Mail boxes. And the Royal Guards in their red uniforms.


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Home Sweet Home

I was working on quote for the Grand River Conservation Authority, so I went to their website www.grandriver.ca. While there I found they had a mapping and aerial photos. I clicked and ended up at GRCA GIS Data Download Tool. I played with it a bit zoomed in this-a-way and that-a-way. Found our house in the aerial view. This photo was apparently taken in early spring 2006. My guess is that our area was taken in mid-May when the dandelions were in bloom. If you find the same area on Google Earth or Google Maps, it is of very poor quality.

A lot of the countryside is available at this resolution. Even Caledonia is of very poor quality on Google. But on this it is very clear.

May 15th Morning Walk

Took a quick walk around the yard this am. Just a few shots of the spring blooms that are showing colour right now.
The first one is the Fragrant snowball. The buds are pinkish, they open to white- but o-o-h how the fragrance fills the air. Not quite at the fragrant stage yet.

Another fragrant bush is the Burkwoodi Daphne. Rosemary's mothers name was Daphne. This daphne has pink flowers and variegated foliage. It is more upright than the regular daphne. Its stems, however, are somewhat brittle and crack easily.

The Carpet Phlox along the driveway is in full colour now. I have white and blue, would like to get a pink variety sometime. Last year I split the blue plant and moved it to another part of the garden. That one gets a little more sun and hits bull bloom a few days earlier.

This yellow Euphorbia plant is one that we used to have at the old "homestead" when I was growing up in Greensville. Here I have to be careful or it will seed itself all over the place. I don't know what my dad did back then, I only remember one specimen in the side yard. Now, I cut the flowers off when they finish to prevent too many seeds.

Forget me nots, while a beautiful blue colour will definitely seed themselves all over the garden if you let them. I keep pulling them out if they get into the wrong part of the garden. I try to keep them in a small area, otherwise they will take over the whole bed/garden. They also seed themselves like crazy. This photo is actually in Rosemary's dad part of the garden.

The redbud is past its peak. (see a photo on Silent Conversation)

Also blooming now are the apple trees- (they really need to be pruned), Primroses, bergenia and spirea prunifolia.